Alternative Paths to Fulfilment: Women, Selfhood, and Exile in George Moore and Somerville & Ross

This article explores the intersections and divergences in circumstances, attitude, and literary portraiture between George Moore (1852-1933) and the co-authors Edith Œ. Somerville (1858-1949) and Martin Ross (1862-1915). Born into landowning families in the aftermath of the Great Famine, they established themselves as professional authors during a revolutionary era that saw the disempowerment of their class and the independence of Ireland from British rule. Their responses to questions of gender, class, and nation reveal points of convergence as well as significant differences. The article first outlines their biographical and artistic trajectories. It then offers a comparative reading of Moore’s A Drama in Muslin (1886) and Somerville and Ross’s The Real Charlotte (1894), focusing on their critique of gentry society and their representations of subversive, empowered female protagonists. The third section compares and contrasts Moore’s Alice Barton, whose empowerment is achieved through literature, expatriation and marriage, with Somerville and Ross’s Charlotte Mullen, a morally ambiguous yet strikingly modern figure who asserts power as an unmarried woman in Ireland. Ultimately, the article argues that Somerville and Ross advanced a more radical vision of women’s agency than did Moore, challenging his claim that Ireland offered no space for single women of talent and spirit.